Dublin shooting eyewitness: ‘I’m going to die’

An eyewitness thought he was going to die when a gun was pointed at his head during a fatal shooting incident in Dublin.

One man was shot dead and two others were seriously injured at 2.30pm at the Regency Hotel on the Swords Road during a weigh-in for Saturday’s WBO European Lightweight title fight between Jamie Kavanagh v Antonio Jao Bento.

Kevin McAnena, a BBC Radio Foyle reporter, told RTÉ Six One news the weigh-in was almost over when the incident happened.

“I came out of the lobby and there was people pushing and shoving. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought maybe a fist fight had broken out behind them.

“I looked at the receptionist and asked what’s going on? The next thing, on the steps outside, I heard two gun shots and two really loud bangs.”

“Two men came in holding AK47 rifles and they were dressed in Garda uniforms. One of them ran ahead and by this point most people had run out, but I almost kind of froze.

“One of the guys ran across the lobby, then one of the guys with the guns turned, shot him in the lower leg and he went down. He was possibly six feet from me - that’s the guy who has now died.

“At that point I jumped over the receptionist’s desk and got on the ground. I started shouting, ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot’ because I could hear more gunfire from the other side.

‘Don’t shoot’

“At that point the gunman leaned over the receptionist’s desk and looked down and pointed the gun at me. I was still shouting ‘Don’t shoot’. He said something to me that I can’t recall and then he left.

“That was the end of the episode really, I din’t hear anything more after that.

“He was holding the gun down at me and I was looking down the barrel of the gun. At this point I was thinking, ‘I ’m going to die’. I never knew the meaning of the word terrified until this afternoon and I just shouted, ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot’. I actually think I shouted, I’m innocent.

“I went behind reception where there was a little room, and I hid for the best part of an hour with the receptionist because we were both too terrified to come out - because we kind of worked out that it couldn’t be a garda because people were shot so indiscriminately,” he said.

“I kind of figured it was someone dressed up as a garda but I didn’t [know] so it was all very confusing and surreal,” he said.

Mr McAnena said he spent what he believed was an hour in the office with the receptionist before he came out and decided it would be safe to leave.

“We rang the gardaí and asked if it was safe to come out and they said there was units out there and it was safe to come out.

“When I came out I saw there was a Garda tent around the man who had been shot and he was now dead. There was detectives around and they took statements,” he said.

Mr McAnena said he and other eyewitnesses were left “dumbfounded” by the gun attack.

“Everyone is dumbfounded - no one can make sense of what happened because we were just there on an ordinary run-of-the-mill event and the next thing, people run out firing guns. It’s so hard to wrap your head around... everyone is scared stiff.”